observations on life, faith and leadership

The Parable of the Lost Ring

Friday morning I was sitting at my computer working on my sermon. I was fiddling with my wedding ring and accidentally dropped it. I was in the middle of a thought so I ignored it and figured I’d get it later. Later turned out to be around 5:15 pm. I completely forgot about it until I’d already packed up my briefcase and headed out the door. No problem though. My office is tiny and I know exactly where I dropped it. Fifteen minutes later I was on my hands and knees looking under the same stack of books I’d already looked under three times. The ring was gone! I’d been over every square inch of my floor. I’d moved my desk, dug through my chair, even shuffled through my files in case one of them was open when I dropped it. Nothing!

Finally, in desperation, I paused and said a short prayer . . . “Lord, please help me find this ring.” I went back to searching, thinking how awesome it would be if I immediately found it after saying the prayer. But after a fourth look under the same stack of books, I was still ringless. So I turned off the lights, shut the door, and picked up my briefcase. Then it hit me! My briefcase was laying open beside my chair all day. What if the ring dropped in there? I emptied the briefcase and the ring was laying in bottom of the second pocket. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, slipped it on my finger, and headed home.

At home I related the story to my wife. When she asked how I found the ring I said, “I finally remembered that my briefcase was beside my desk and I thought it could have fallen in there.” I remembered. I thought. No mention of God. No mention of the answered prayer. Sound familiar? How many of us have asked God to do something and when He does it, we take all the credit?

I hurt my finger working in the yard (nearly pulled it off with the ring) so I had to take the ring off for about a month and didn’t find it for another few months. Losing things is kind of an art form for me.

We tend to think of people who give God the credit for even the simple explainable things in life as fanatics. We sane folks only give God the credit for supernatural unexplainable events. And even then we look for a possible explaination. For example:In the CCU I have seen many people at the point of death. I have listened as thier families prayed fervently for healing. Then ocassionally (rarely) when it does come, they thank the Doctors, the antibiotics, and the amazing medical technology. Even the doctors will tell you. The medicine and the technology may help, but it is truely God’s choice who lives and who dies.

Many times people ask for help and then forget to give credit. I think God gives us a pass a lot because He created us imperfect and knows we’ll do that however we should strive to give Him the credit in everything.Allison